Vizio cuts down their selection of PCs, but introduce new refinements

Vizio is better known for their HD televisions and sound bars than their selection of Windows PCs, but it is seen as no surprise considering they only jumped into the game two years ago. Their last selection of machines where simple and beautiful, while at the same time lacking the refinement and careful engineering that would really make them solid machines.

This year at CES, the company is having another go and have introduced their new Thin + Light machines.

The new machines include a 15.6-inch Ultrabook and a 24-inch all in one desktop. Both new machines will see the introduction of Intel's Core i7 Haswell CPU and new Intel graphic solutions. If you are worried about future proofing your purchase, you have no need to worry; both units feature 1080p touch screens along with 802.11ac wireless chips.

What may be more important than what the company has introduced and given us is what the company has taken away. On Vizio's laptop line, gone are the 14-inch touch screen and 15-inch non-touch screen notebooks – the company expects you to be in love with their 15-inch touch screen model and not desire anything smaller.

On the desktop side of the spectrum, Vizio has also killed off their 27-inch all in one unit and will be offering only the new 24-inch models.

Vizio is one of the new companies trying to push into the personal computer market, and with PC sales continuing to decline - it may not be the best time to squeeze in. Many times, a company will downsize their selection if sales are not going as expected and it is safe to say that Vizio is nowhere near the sales of Dell, HP, Lenovo, and other competitors.

We wish the best for Vizio, and will be brining a full review to you in the coming future on the latest CES 2014 machines.

It's not the "802.11" part that makes it special, it is the "ac" part that is special. The letters are the protocol type that is being used. The "ac" protocol is faster than the last generation "n" and while your current router probably doesn't support it - your next router in the future will.

Vizio is known to be the best buy for the buck... A while back they made an all-in-one PC that came with a subwoofer, remote, wireless keyboard and mouse pad. It used to sport an Intel i7 third generation at the time and it all came out to $999.99 at Costco. HP today has a similar model with an Intel i5 minus subwoofer and remote for $999.99. Not to mention HP is twice the thickness since the computer is placed behind the LED monitor. So, yes I'd love for Vizio to hang out with their PCs since you can get a beautifully designed PC without the price tag of a large PC company.

I owned the latest 15" touchscreen thin+light that they put out, and sold it a few months ago on ebay. The keyboards on these things are one of the worst I've ever used. Missing some critical buttons for me (home + end), the layout is a bit strange, and the key travel is just wrong and unresponsive occasionally.

The rest of the laptop is gorgeous (rate it up there with a macbook), and I frequently got comments on it... but the keyboard and touchpad will make you want to throw it against the wall after 10 minutes. Wifi reliability was also an issue, as I had to manually reconnect to access points when turning it on.